Halo 5 is Getting a 4K Makeover for Xbox One X

Halo may have been conspicuously absent at Microsoft's E3 presentation this year, but that doesn't mean we won't be seeing the software giant's biggest game franchise on Xbox One X this holiday season. That's right, Halo 5: Guardians is getting a 4K makeover. "The team here at 343 always had a desire to bring players the best Halo 5 experience for Xbox One X, but we weren’t quite ready to make the announcement during the E3 time frame," a 343 Industries post on the official Halo site notes. "Today we are excited to officially confirm that Halo 5 will receive a game update to support true 4K with the release of Xbox One X later this year! We’ll have more to share on this front as we get closer to release, so stay tuned." In other words, that's all we know: Halo 5 will not be remastered or re-released for Xbox One X. Instead the existing game will simply be updated to support 4K graphics on Xbox One X only. So you could buy the game now and start playing, and potentially finish it (or replay it) in 4K later. I'm curious how the multiplayer experience will be improved. Perhaps true 1080p? Also, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo 4, and Halo: CE Anniversary for Xbox 360 are all coming to Xbox Backward Compatibility. Each will include campaign and multiplayer modes, and will support LAN play between Xbox One and Xbox 360. And even better, every Xbox 360 Halo add-on map pack in the Xbox Store will be made available for free once these games are in Backward Compatibility.

Halo may have been conspicuously absent at Microsoft’s E3 presentation this year, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be seeing the software giant’s biggest game franchise on Xbox One X this holiday season. That’s right, Halo 5: Guardians is getting a 4K makeover.

“The team here at 343 always had a desire to bring players the best Halo 5 experience for Xbox One X, but we weren’t quite ready to make the announcement during the E3 time frame,” a 343 Industries post on the official Halo site notes. “Today we are excited to officially confirm that Halo 5 will receive a game update to support true 4K with the release of Xbox One X later this year! We’ll have more to share on this front as we get closer to release, so stay tuned.”

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In other words, that’s all we know: Halo 5 will not be remastered or re-released for Xbox One X. Instead the existing game will simply be updated to support 4K graphics on Xbox One X only. So you could buy the game now and start playing, and potentially finish it (or replay it) in 4K later. I’m curious how the multiplayer experience will be improved. Perhaps true 1080p?

Also, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo 4, and Halo: CE Anniversary for Xbox 360 are all coming to Xbox Backward Compatibility. Each will include campaign and multiplayer modes, and will support LAN play between Xbox One and Xbox 360. And even better, every Xbox 360 Halo add-on map pack in the Xbox Store will be made available for free once these games are in Backward Compatibility.

 

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Conversation 18 comments

  • Waethorn

    06 July, 2017 - 4:25 pm

    <p>I was reading some of the stuff coming out of Digital Foundry over performance of Xbox One X, and not-surprisingly, it's NOT providing 4K 60fps in every game.</p>

    • rameshthanikodi

      06 July, 2017 - 10:53 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#136367"><em>In reply to Waethorn:</em></a></blockquote><p>to be fair, 60fps was never the promise. 4k was the promise. The problem is that right now it's unclear exactly how powerful the X.B.O.X is – if some games can hit 4k, why not others? is it developers not optimizing their games well enough for the platform? A definitive answer will arrive in due time but for now we don't know.</p><p>The thing is, reaching "true 4k" is extremely challenging, even on the best PCs you can get. Some games will inevitably use some kind of upscaling to hit 4k. Contrary to popular opinion, upscaling can look good and is often the best compromise.</p>

      • Waethorn

        07 July, 2017 - 11:02 am

        <blockquote><a href="#136467"><em>In reply to FalseAgent:</em></a></blockquote><p>Actually, they said the target was 4K/60 before in interviews. Paul seemed to parrot that statement.</p>

      • Waethorn

        07 July, 2017 - 11:06 am

        <blockquote><a href="#136467"><em>In reply to FalseAgent:</em></a></blockquote><p>I'm just pointing out Paul's false statement that the "Xbox One X is 'true 4K' whereas the PS4 Pro isn't".</p><p><br></p><p>Both can do 4K output – natively. He claims that the Xbox One X will do "true 4k", but according to this new news from Digital Foundry, it looks like the Xbox One X will NOT, in fact, be doing "True 4K" on all titles, and will use checkerboarding and dynamic resolution and other tricks, nor will it be able to hit 60fps targets on all titles (which I expected as much).</p><p><br></p><p>The PS4 Pro has a lower-end GPU, sure. It's also a year older, and cheaper. That an extra year and an extra $100 is going to make the Xbox One X a magical box that will run everything at 4K/60 is turning out to be an utterly false claim.</p>

        • rameshthanikodi

          07 July, 2017 - 11:46 am

          <blockquote><a href="#136909"><em>In reply to Waethorn:</em></a></blockquote><p>Right. The "true 4k" marketing is misleading, because clearly Microsoft's version of "true 4k" is more like better support for upscaled rendering and other tricks.</p><p>The X.B.O.X was never going to do "true 4k" on all titles, varying from game to game, which is completely expected. Devs are free to use the additional power as they deem fit, to target whatever resolution or FPS the want at their preferred settings, and to implement upscaling as needed. The real question is if or not "true 4k" is worth the performance cost vs. negligible image quality loss with checkerboarding/dynamic res. More often than not, it's an okay compromise, and a more wise use of GPU power to hit 4k, which is why the devs are doing it. To be honest, checkerboard 4k looks great even on PC, depending on the title. </p>

          • Waethorn

            07 July, 2017 - 11:49 am

            <blockquote><a href="#136954"><em>In reply to FalseAgent:</em></a></blockquote><p>Exactly. I'm pointing out Paul's hypocrisy on the subject. The Xbox One X doesn't look to be much different than the PS4 Pro, except that's is scaled-up by $100. It's not magically "True 4K" like he claims.</p>

            • rameshthanikodi

              07 July, 2017 - 11:57 am

              <blockquote><a href="#136956"><em>In reply to Waethorn:</em></a></blockquote><p>We'll have to see. More games will arrive and we'll get a clearer picture of exactly how much more powerful the extra $100 is. If the X.B.O.X can hit even checkerboard 4k (upscaled 2k) across all games, it would actually be a pretty solid 4k gaming machine. Some PS4 Pro titles only hit 1080p which is sort of a dud.</p>

              • Waethorn

                07 July, 2017 - 12:24 pm

                <blockquote><a href="#136960"><em>In reply to FalseAgent:</em></a></blockquote><p>The PS4 Pro games that do 1080p but are still "PS4 Pro enhanced" do better quality HDR over the original PS4 and higher-quality textures and possibly higher poly counts. There is no mandate on what features they use, but to carry a "PS4 Pro enhanced" logo means that it will support graphics enhancements not possible on the regular PS4. Sony also documented that dynamic resolution dips are automatically corrected in the PS4 Pro without needing a special patch, so that function of the Xbox One X (or S for that matter) is not unique.</p>

            • TechnologyTemperance

              07 July, 2017 - 1:04 pm

              <blockquote><a href="#136956"><em>In reply to Waethorn:</em></a></blockquote><p>It would seem to be more inaccuracy than hypocrisy.. splitting hairs of course :)</p>

    • TechnologyTemperance

      07 July, 2017 - 1:03 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#136367"><em>In reply to Waethorn:</em></a></blockquote><p>I ask this in all seriousness… If the resolution is 4k, but the frame rate isn't 60, it's still 4K with no upscaling right? I know that everyone wants 4k/60, i'm just wondering if MSFT promised the 60, or just the 4k.</p>

      • Waethorn

        07 July, 2017 - 1:57 pm

        <blockquote><a href="#136990"><em>In reply to TechnologyTemperance:</em></a></blockquote><p>Microsoft said the target was 60fps more than once. </p><p><br></p><p>I don't know of a single gamer that cares more about 4K than they do about 60fps. If it isn't 60fps at 4K, calling it "True 4K" is a complete mislabel, because gamers (especially those like Paul that like multiplayer games) would rather be running at 60fps. This means the game is NOT going to be "True 4K", or else it's locked into 4K with a really crappy framerate. So what's the point?!? If you're playing multiplayer, you'll want 60fps, especially for shooters, which means you WON'T get 4K resolutions. How much of that "True 4K" are you really going to get then? Paul is criticizing the PS4 Pro for the exact same thing, which is why I'm calling it a hypocrisy.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

  • Narg

    08 July, 2017 - 12:27 am

    <blockquote><a href="#137020"><em>In reply to Waethorn:</em></a></blockquote><p>You need another hobby is this bothers you…</p>

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